


Remember Him

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:57:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what happens, Aredhel will not forget her brave brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember Him

_Please, Arakáno. Please forgive me._

It was cold, or what she would once have regarded as cold, but now she barely felt it. 

Nevertheless, a violent shiver ran through her that was not from the clammy, chill air and biting wind off the lake. 

She stared out into the grey waters, wondering what was to become of them. 

 _Arakáno, my little brother_ , she heard herself say to the water.  _Come back to me. Come back. Please, let it have been a dream._ She clutched her elbows, to still the trembling.  _Let me wake, and you will never have died, and we will never have crossed the Ice and everything will be as it was once. Please. Please, Arko.[[MORE]]_

But she knew it could not be so, that she would not hold her little brother in her arms ( _little_  was how she always thought of him although he had shot up like a stalk and been a head and a half taller than her for many years) would never race him through the palace gardens or fight with sticks for swords in the dapple-lit forest under the light of the Trees.

She had seen his face set in determination before the battle, she remembered, trying to cling to every last memory, sifting and sorting through them, trying to find some sign, some answer. _Why, Arakáno? Why did you do it? Did you think you could win? End this? Save us all?_  She did not know, could find no answers, so instead she let the memories run through her mind until they did not feel real anymore, as though they were something someone else had told her about or a story she had read in a book.

 _No_ , she thought, desperately.  _I’ve already lost you once. I will not let you slip from out of my head too._  She tried to focus on the sound of her little brother’s laugh, his unruly hair that always seemed to be just as tangled as her own, his teasing that had often made her want to slam the door in his face. His long, gangling limbs as he was growing, his toothy grin. 

Instead all she saw was his eyes narrowed in grim resolve as their enemy poured down the hill, shaded by his helm. And then after, his skin grey-white and blotchy, blood on his mouth as he spluttered out his last breaths in their father’s arms, even more blood pouring from the great ragged hole through his stomach, the wound at his forehead. Blood dripping from the curls of his hair. She had never seen so much blood; she had seen plenty of death, to be sure, but those who had died on the Ice had not died from wounds. 

At the time it had not felt real.

Then there had been her father’s eyes, pits of raw pain as he looked up at her, cradling Arakáno in his arms. One look at those eyes and at the blood on her brother’s face told her all she needed to know. She had come too late, she had realised, dropping to her knees even as Findekáno came up beside her with an anguished cry. Their father had been there with Arakáno as he died, but they had all been too late, when it came to it.

She pushed the memory away.  _No, Arakáno. No, I will not have that be my clearest memory of you._

_Arakáno as a skinny, gawky child dressed in Turukáno’s old riding leathers that were much too large for him, playing at being the hero and badgering his near-adult sister to climb the tallest tower so he could have a princess to save. She had teased him mercilessly, sometimes, but often enough she had indulged him too. She liked to climb, anyway._

_Oh Arakáno. I’m sorry none of us could save you._

_Forgive me, little brother, little hero. Please?_

_I will not forget you. I will not let any of them forget you._

She frowned, thinking of the others who she now must stay strong for. But Findekáno had disappeared and would surely never return. Before he had left, he had become as fierce and reckless, as taciturn and unpredictable as Arakáno had been, near the end. She should have seen that, she thought, tears starting in her eyes. Now he was gone to Angband, and lost forever, like as not.

Turukáno too was brittle and like to break, his daughter the only thing keeping him alive day by day. Her father knew well enough that he must stay strong for their people, and perhaps to them he looked as though he knew what they were to do now. Irissë knew him too well; she could see the cracks where despair had begun to seep through. 

He and the others all had their gazes drawn by the camp across the lake, the little clusters of night fires across the water in the night, burning against the cold.

It reminded all of a different fire across the water. But none spoke of that, keeping their rage close, locked in their chests, letting it fuel them and keep them alive.

 _Forgive me, Arakáno_ , she thought as the wind blew through her cloak and she shivered once more, this time from the cold that was now seeping through to her very bones.  _Forgive us all. We will not forget you. I promise._

Even in her own head, the words sounded hollow, pale feeble things drifting away like snow on the wind. 


End file.
